The Mithras Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  “No, no Your Magnificence, that wasn’t—”

  “I have my own special plans for the cardinal.” The voice of the Pater Patrum became clipped and fast. “I know about the calling card of swastikas and bull’s blood the probationary Raven left on the coffins.”

  “The Raven drinks too much.” Somebody snitched. How can I save my darling? “He knew the pope’s blessing of the mausoleum angered you, so he tried to please you by desecrating the sarcophagi.” The prefect ran his fingers back and forth over his forehead. “He won’t cause more problems. I promise. I’ll personally watch him. I’ll—”

  “He will assuredly cause no more problems. I have terminated your lover.”

  “No . . . It can’t be. What will I do without him?”

  “Do not fret. Unless you recover the parchment, you will join him.”

  ***

  From his ivory throne on the dais, Piso looked approvingly over the arrangements his household staff had made for the re-creation of an ancient Roman banquet in his honor. All he needed for a perfect evening was a favorable reply from Rome.

  The movers and shakers of Argentina reclined uncomfortably on couches fashioned in the ancient Roman manner for one reason only. He wanted it so. Slave-costumed waiters served wild boar stuffed with dates from serving stations set up in the dining hall. Silver platters loaded with blood sausages rested next to heaping bowls of ostrich ragout, and small birds marinated in egg yolk with parrot tongues and jellyfish.

  The thrumming of lute music in the background stopped.

  “And now, my dear guests,” Piso announced from the head table, “the highlight of Roman cuisine.”

  Shadows swam through blackish ooze in cauldrons heating up in front of the dais. The sulfurous stink of rotten eggs permeated the dining hall. Reclining guests nearby gasped. Some too degenerate to appreciate the strong sensations of life tried leaving their dining couches. To prevent their departure, security guards locked the exits. The sharp edge of Piso’s rapier remarks shamed the fainthearted into returning to their places.

  “I invite you to taste this specialty.” His look spoke command and not request. “My chef has re-created a Roman garum sauce made from the gills, intestines, and blood of mackerel maturing in our hot Argentine sun for seven months, a sauce through which goatfish now swim, turning bright red as they die a well-seasoned death for your eating pleasure.”

  He took note not to trust those faces wrinkled in disgust as his staff served the goatfish. Piso knew the others feigned approval so as not to offend their host. They eat just to please me. His boyish glee at the sight of mayors and bishops eating the goatfish sated a hunger gnawing at him more than any hunger pangs he’d ever had. He wielded the power to control men, even what and how they ate.

  Nothing was left to chance. The guests rose on prearranged cue to offer farewell toasts in honor of the host, each successive speaker trying to outdo the previous profusion of praise.

  Out of script, a tipsy guest from the Ministry of Social Development cried from the back of the room, “You have all missed something. We cannot pass this day without public thanks to our generous host for his philanthropic support of orphanages, not only in Argentina, but throughout the world.”

  A round of applause erupted. Ambushed by surprise, Piso waved his hand for them to stop. He loathed publicity about the aid he gave to orphanages. It stirred up unwanted memories. “I, too, was once a throw-away child,” he uttered in response. A sob broke through his clenched mouth before he could smother the display of weakness.

  Fearful of his off-script outburst, he turned for deliverance to a messenger ascending the dais. Had the circumspect contribution to the campaign of the Italian prime minister borne fruit? The answer had arrived from Rome.

  He read the message and shared the news with his guests. The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities had appointed him superintendent in charge of all excavations in the archaeological zone of ancient Herculaneum. The standing ovation from the audience of sycophants washed away the nightmare remembrance.

  He could now control a project dear to his heart: the renewed excavation of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, the villa owned by the Pisos, his ancient relatives. He would finance the project from his own funds if he had to. Bad enough the Chinese financed the maintenance of nearby Pompeii with the obsequious gratitude of a bankrupt and feckless government.

  The time had come to lay claim to his ancestral home and set in motion his plot of political revolution and social resurgence.

  Chapter Ten

  Back from his hilltop mansion, Lucio Piso sat in his penthouse atop an art deco building in Buenos Aires. His communications director hooked him up to a desktop Skype system, while an aide looked on. The wavy image of Cardinal Gustavo Furbone solidified on the monitor. A pectoral cross hung from his neck. After confirming all was in working order, the director left the room.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Signor Piso.”

  Excellent. The pig does not remember me. “Likewise.” But I shall never forget.

  “Why did you insist I contact you from the Vatican on this device?”

  The same jowls—pink and unlined like a baby’s bottom.

  “Your aide said the matter was too urgent to await my arrival in Rome. And I prefer to do business face to face . . . especially with persons I have never met.”

  “Will you do it?”

  The same tic of pulling his ear under stress.

  “Why not the police?”

  “The recovery of the document requires confidentiality to avoid Church scandal.”

  “Why me?”

  The cardinal ordered his offscreen aide out of the room.

  “My brother, who owns a carnival store in Venice, recommends your discreet services . . . beyond the conventional ones offered by the police.” The image of the cardinal moved closer. “More than legal means may be required in the retrieval.”

  “Ah yes, the proprietor of Sfaccia Sfumata. A fine man, your brother. He supplies my South American business interests with animal masks for the carnival celebration.”

  “I have a question . . . Yo-ur Emin-ence.” Piso almost gagged pronouncing the title of office when he wanted to say Your Hypocrisy. “Do you know who now possesses the object in question?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” The cardinal sipped from a glass of water. “You’re not recording this conversation, are you?” Even now the cardinal’s lips puckered as he spoke, like those of a scavenger carp.

  “To do so would benefit neither of us.”

  “In that case”—Furbone pulled his ear—“is the compensation sufficient?”

  The fool pays me for finding what I seek while I pretend to seek on his behalf.

  “Not quite.” Piso drew closer to the monitor. “I also want the Mithras statue recovered by the Church. Stroheim sent me photographs of a mutilated statue of Mithras found by workmen digging around the church of Saints Nereus and Achilleus. I must have that statue with the cross on the forehead.”

  “But the government disputes our claim. They say it belongs to the Baths of Caracalla within sight of the church.”

  “I will take care of the government. Do I get it or not?”

  “If you insist. The pagan idol means nothing to the Church.”

  “I do insist.”

  “One final thing.” The cardinal tugged at his ear again. “When you recover the Festus parchment, contact me no matter the hour. Don’t worry about disturbing me.”

  “Rest assured. I will never worry about disturbing you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  In the study of his Buenos Aires penthouse, Lucio Piso took a break, rubbing his eyes. The flowchart of his financial empire was sprawled out on his custom-built desk of Carpathian elm. He put his arms behind his head and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. His interlocking businesses
crisscrossed the globe in a potent tangle of disguised power. Just as all roads led to Rome, all his businesses led to his Argentine holding company, Piso Global Enterprises, where he doled out bribes and jobs in exchange for a base to operate under the law’s radar. Only destiny could explain the rise from orphan beggar to one of the world’s richest and most powerful men. The way Cardinal Furbone had fallen into his hands like ripe fruit confirmed this destiny.

  About to commit suicide to escape grinding poverty and depression, he had inherited from a distant relative a farm on the verge of foreclosure in the Maremma backcountry. He turned a profit by selling olive oil and pasta across Italy. From there, he gobbled up one farm after another until he wound up the CEO of the largest European agribusiness. From agricultural dominance he branched out across the world with the manufacture of everything from beds to bullets. Tired of making things, he resolved to influence opinion by acquiring media outlets in Argentina and Italy. He would no longer remain hidden away as the financial angel and puppet master of playacting politicians. Soon he would emerge from the wings onto the world stage as a twenty-first century leader.

  The real he was not the vulnerable shell called Lucio Piso. No. He was in Lucio but not of Lucio. His true self was the godhead within Lucio. By viewing Lucio as an object from above, he could guide Lucio the puppet on the path of power. Only the superman within had the wit to flee from the psychiatrists ready to kill him with pills and palaver. There was nothing wrong with him.

  The intercom buzzed, interrupting his visions of glory. Piso pressed the blinking call button to hear his secretary say, “He called and apologized for running late.”

  “Let me know when he arrives.” Annoyed, Piso consulted his bejeweled wristwatch. He had almost forgotten feeding time. He rushed to the aviary on the roof outside his apartment, where he rounded up a chirping chick. Behind wooden planks and wire mesh, a Harris’s hawk fluttered its wings in a blur of chestnut-and-white color. He crushed the chick dead with a squeeze of his falconry glove and unlatched the aviary door. The hawk glided onto his gloved arm. Pausing only to gulp, the hawk tore off tidbits of feathers and flesh from the chick carcass held by Piso’s protected fingers. Afterward, Piso returned to his desk to complete any paperwork needed before he would depart for Rome.

  The intercom buzzed again. “He’s arrived.”

  “Send him in at once.”

  Jesse Soames entered and shook hands with Piso. “It’s so good to see you again, Lucio.”

  Piso winced at the use of his first name. If it had been any other employee, he would have reprimanded this presumptuous American informality. But Jesse Soames was an unwitting but important cog in the grand plan. Now head of Latin American operations for Piso Global Enterprises, he had served in Vietnam and won the Medal of Honor for heroism in Iraq.

  Piso trusted Soames not because of his character but because of dirty little secrets he could use against him. With his nearly two-meter height, blue eyes, and blond buzz cut, Jesse Soames showcased the do-gooder face of Piso Global Enterprises that Piso wanted the world to see, while its other face went undetected. The Baptist missionary work Soames did in his free time had enhanced the reputation of the worldwide conglomerate with humanitarian awards.

  “My dear Soames, I am inexpressibly sorry about your wife.” He forced his face to show a compassion he did not feel. “But I need you with me in Rome after you go back for the funeral. It would do you good. You could visit the grave of your grandfather, Colonel Soames.”

  “I’d like that. Because of his distinguished service, I chose a military career. The last time I visited his grave, I was doing liaison with the Italian military.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “I should have been with her.”

  “You could not know she would die visiting friends and family in Georgia.”

  “My daughter . . . you remember? . . . Nicole, the archaeologist?”

  “How could I forget? A talented woman full of promise.”

  “She’s going to Amalfi for a wedding.” Soames held his chin. “I suppose I could meet her in Rome.”

  “Meeting her there is a wonderful idea.”

  “We haven’t seen each other for a while.” Soames blew out a breath. “But what about Latin American operations? I’m supposed to launch our marketing drive here.”

  “I have made alternative arrangements.”

  “I should’ve known.” Soames smiled. “You think of everything . . . but I’ll bet you didn’t think of the five new Baptist churches I planted in Argentina and their social service ministry. Who’s going to tend them?”

  “That is why I need you.” Piso switched on the state-of-the-art 3-D wall television set for the afternoon news. “Look.” Water cannons flushed away crowds surging toward the office of the Italian prime minister. The scene switched to the Testaccio district of Rome, where helmeted police in visors lobbed stun grenades into a charging crowd protesting the rape and dismemberment of a twenty-year-old girl by an illegal African immigrant. The flash bang of the grenades blinded and deafened the rioters. A line of soldiers fired rubber bullets toward those trying to regroup around a leader draped in the Italian flag.

  “I heard about the Italian riots on the car radio.” Soames looked away from the set toward Piso. “What’s this got to do with me?”

  “It is returning.” Piso sat in his executive chair of ostrich hide. “Like the days before the Second World War. Economic misery. The tide of illegal immigrants from the cesspool of the Mideast. The rise of iron-willed men.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I predict the Italian government will fall.”

  “So what’s new?”

  “This will be the last fall.” Piso rose and leaned across his desk. “The impoverished and destitute multiply in Rome and brawl with illegal immigrants. Piso Global Enterprises must win goodwill . . . and, of course, help the hungry and sick. I want you to take your experience in working with the downtrodden to set up a relief agency in Rome with centers for food and shelter.”

  “Can I do Baptist missionary work over there?”

  “Absolutely.” Piso opened his arms. “Who am I to deny your Christianity?”

  “Really?” Soames smiled. “But the Roman Catholic Church.”

  “The priests will not bother you. I have my contacts.”

  “Then I’m in.”

  “Bravo.” Piso hugged Soames. “Will you shelter my friend from the States . . . a sad case . . . in one of the Rome soup kitchens you’ll set up?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do not forget . . . because I never forget.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Nicole Garvey knelt at the coffin of her stepmother in the Rock of Ages funeral home just outside Dublin, Georgia. With a face as dismal as a dried-apple carving in rouge, the deceased clutched a Bible with fingers withered down to talons. While mourners behind sang of the heavenly feast to come, Nicole only heard the late Mrs. Jesse Soames badgering a redheaded, pigtailed girl, whom she’d insisted on calling Nick, to learn the art of cooking. You’ll never catch a man, Nick—a nickname the girl hated—unless you learn to cook. The Southern belle, lifeless in her Sunday best, had judged the pigtailed girl a hopeless tomboy misfit. Nicole no longer wore pigtails, but the memories remained.

  Her father had never given up on her, though. How triumphant she had felt those times he rescued her from the kitchen, where she could do no right, to go camping with the Baptist Family Campout. The leaves had crunched under her feet, while masculine banter floated in the forest air scented with sputtering bacon and percolator coffee. She would press her ear against the inside of her sleeping tent to hear the fathers outside tell tales of Noah’s Ark discovered in Turkey, and the Ark of the Covenant, sure to be found somewhere in Ethiopia. He nurtured her passion for archaeology all the way through a doctorate.

  “Your stepmother was right proud of you.” Her f
ather’s voice came from behind. He stood over her, his hand on her shoulder.

  She stood up and hugged him. “I’m sure,” she said. She finished the rest of her sentence to herself, that she told me no man wants an overeducated tomboy digging up old bones.

  “She always wanted to help you, trying to teach you to cook and all.”

  “I know.” Out of hurt pride and concern for her father, she never told him how his second wife would pinch her whenever she violated the code of the Southern belle. When he asked, she just made up lies to explain the black-and-blue marks on her arms.

  “I was pretty lonely after your mother died.”

  “You had every right to remarry and be happy.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you did.”

  Glad for him, not for herself. She would never tell him how his second wife had insinuated Nicole was responsible for her mother’s death due to complications while giving birth to her. He didn’t deserve to have his peace of mind disturbed. The nastiness of her stepmother’s guilt trips no longer existed unless she let it fester in her thoughts. The world beyond Georgia had cleansed from her mind the guilt that no tent revival meeting could.

  “I want to thank you.” He took both her hands into his. “You didn’t have to come, but you did.”

  “I wanted to be here for you.”

  “Have you thought some more about meeting in Rome after your girlfriend’s wedding?” He hugged her. “We both could use some R&R. Let’s go visit the grave of your great-grandpa, Colonel Soames. I told you what a hero he was.”

  “My World War Two cloak-and-dagger great-granddad?” How she had loved to brag to other kids about his exploits. She withdrew from her father’s embrace and looked at the floor. “I don’t think I’m going to Cindy’s wedding in Amalfi.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll drop the divorce proceedings.” She grabbed her father’s hands, wanting him to be happy for her. “He wants to work things out.”